Dick’s Dispatch #119

The Last Blacksmith & Greatest Walker

By Richard E. Venus

Under the spreading chestnut tree, 

the Village Smithy stands. 

The smith, a mighty man is he, 

with large and sinewy hands, 

and the muscles of his brawny arms, 

are strong as iron bands.

It was 143 years ago that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his famous poem. That was 43 years before Harry Marvin Thomas was born, so we can not say that the great poet had Harry in mind, when he composed it. Yet, the description of the village smithy fit Harry to a T, especially the references to his honesty and sterling character.

I was less than ten years of age when l first met Harry Thomas and a friendship began that was to last all those many years. Harry enjoyed a great reputation for miles around and we felt very privileged to be included in his circle of friends. When he passed on, just a few years ago, in his 89th year, he was the last of Ridgefield’s many blacksmiths. Just a few years later his wife Minolia, followed him to her reward at the age of 96.

Harry Thomas was a descendent of Benjamin Stebbins, one of Ridgefield's very earliest settlers. Members of the famous Stebbins family lived where Casagmo is now for almost 200 years.  Harry’s father, George M. Thomas, was a conductor on the railroad branch that ran from here to Branchville. George was only 27 when he was crushed to death while assisting the brakeman in the coupling of two railroad cars.

As reported in an earlier column, the business of hooking the railroad cars together was probably the most dangerous part of railroading. This tragic accident left Mrs. Thomas with  the task of raising three children, a daughter, Edna, and two sons, Harry and Howard.

Howard will probably be best remembered as the proprietor of the West Lane grocery, where Gene Casagrande has his CasaMore store today. Sports enthusiasts will recall how Howard made those great left-handed shots in basketball games at the old town hall. For some reason, Howard would always shout “Hey” as he unerringly made those shots from either side of the court.

Harry and Minolia had three daughters, Gertrude, Esther and Marie. Gertrude is now Mrs. Lawrence Hoyt and still lives on Silver Spring Road. The Hoyts' daughter, Doris, is Mrs. George Ventres and the Ventres’son Dale is proprietor of the Ridgefield Power Equipment Shop. So Dale can easily trace his lineage back to 1714, when Benjamin Stebbins came to town.

The Thomas family has had an active participation in town affairs for many years. Harry's great grandfather, Albert N. Thomas, was town clerk for Ridgefield back in Civil War days. Albert was also an original member of the Library Club, which formed a nucleus for our present Ridgefield Library.

Albert’s son Elijah L. Thomas (grandfather of Harry) succeeded his father as town clerk and also served as a judge of probate for the town. All this would seem to indicate that the Thomas family were pretty solid citizens.

At the time Harry's father suffered his fatal accident, there was no such thing as Social Security to assist Mrs.Thomas in raising her three children. When Harry was 16 he went to Purdy's Station, near Brewster, N.Y., to learn the blacksmith and farrier trades.

Perhaps we should explain for those not familiar, that a farrier is a shoer of horses, whereas, a blacksmith performs all kinds of iron work and may also engage in horseshoeing.

During his years at Purdy’s, Harry worked 12 hours each day and six days each week. The shop opened at six in the morning and normally closed at six in the evening. However, if six o’clock came around and there were still horses to be shod, the farriers continued to work until they were done.

Harry was a religious man and always looked forward to Sunday. After church services he would walk the 15 miles to Ridgefield to visit his mother. He would time his return walk to Purdy’s so that he would arrive in time for work on Monday morning.

Harry Thomas was the greatest walker we ever saw and even in his late 70's, he would think

nothing of a Sunday walk to Danbury or Brewster. Though he was of average height, his long strides were as great as those of the long-legged giants that play basketball today. He was often offered a ride but would always, graciously, turn it down and then many times he would keep pace with the horse, whose driver had offered the ride.

Ridgefield had several real good walkers. Frank Parks Jr. took very quick steps, when he was a young man and Earl Hibbart had a very smooth and graceful stride, but they could not keep pace with Harry Thomas.

He was by nature, a very friendly man, but always walked alone, for no one could keep up with those great strides. He got over the ground, at a walk, just as fast as some of the joggers that I see on the highway.

Harry was born in the old Bailey Inn that was located on Main Street on the west side almost directly across from where the Christian Science Church is now. Before he and his family moved to their new home, next to the firehouse, he walked daily from his home in Flat Rock near the Wilton town line.

He rarely wore a jacket, except in real cold weather and very seldom was seen with a hat, although when he got to his shop he would don the little black cap with the shiny visor that was the trademark of the smithy.

After Harry had finished his apprenticeship at Purdy’s, he returned to Ridgefield and worked at the Big Shop for a short time. The Big Shop was, as everyone knows, at the rear of the Allan Block, where it had been moved from the corner of West Lane and Main Street, to make room for the Congregational Church. Today the old building is home to a multitude of enterprises, but at the time it served as a blacksmith shop and a carriage shop.

Soon Harry was able to open his own little blacksmith shop. It was located on the Rufus Seymour lot on Olmstead Lane about opposite from where the Piser family now lives. It was while he had this shop that he almost lost his life.

When you brought in a horse to be shod, Harry would never refuse to tackle the job, no matter how bad or unruly the horse might be. He was shoeing a real wild horse one day when he received a kick in the head that Dr. Bryon said would have been fatal if it were one half inch closer to a vital spot. Fortunately Harry was in excellent physical condition and recovered.

  [The next  column will continue the story of Harry Thomas. Dick Venus, who became Ridgefield’s first town historian, wrote 365 “Dick’s Dispatch” columns for the Ridgefield Press, telling about life in Ridgefield during the first half of the 20th Century. This column appeared Sept. 27, 1984.].

Charles Roswell Bacon: 

An Unappreciated Artist

Among the thousands of gravestones in the Ridgefield Cemetery off North Salem Road is one lying on the ground. It’s hard to tell whether the stone was once upright and fell over, or was placed flat when it was new. But slowly the surrounding sod has been covering the face so that it is becoming harder and harder to read.

The disappearing gravestone is perhaps symbolic of the life and death of Charles   Roswell Bacon, a promising American artist and father of noted American author and illustrator Peggy Bacon. The son of a man who drank himself to death, Bacon lost two sons in infancy, struggled with poverty as he sought success as a painter and, depressed over the lack of recognition for his work, killed himself.

Born in New York City in 1867 to a middle-class family, Charles Roswell Bacon knew hard times from a very young age. His father, after the failure of his business as a marble importer, drank

himself to death when Charles was only six years old, and Bacon left public school at the age of 10 to help support his family. However, he showed an early talent for painting, and was able to study at the Art Students’ League in Manhattan. There he met his future wife, Elizabeth Chase, a miniaturist who came from Kentucky.

The artistic pair studied for a year in Paris, including spending time with Claude Monet at Giverny. They returned to the United States and wound up in Ridgefield where they were married  in 1892 and, to support themselves, took jobs managing a new resort hotel here. 

The Inn, built in 1891-92 on the eastern side of southern Main Street,  operated only during

the warmer months, giving both Bacons a chance to paint and travel in the off-season. They continued to operate the hotel into the early 1900s.

Their daughter, Margaret Frances “Peggy” Bacon, was born there in 1895. Two sons born later died in infancy, and are buried in Ridgefield Cemetery.

The three Bacons became a tight-knit family, one that Peggy Bacon remembered with fondness.

“I had the most charming and amusing parents,” she said in a 1973 interview. “We led a very close life together. There was a great deal of reading aloud. They were both very well read.”

“Mother and Father were never affluent. That’s putting it mildly,” Peggy told a Smithsonian Institution interviewer. “As I recall, all my life we had an extraordinary amount of amenities and delicacies even, and delights considering that they were poverty-stricken. The food was marvelous, very gourmet food. And there were quantities of books, endless books arriving. And a great deal of charm. 

“They were people of taste. Father was very well-read in French. He spoke French so well

that French people mistook him for a Frenchman. And yet he had no schooling from the age of ten.”

When the Inn was closed off-season, “We spent certain winters in New York when I was a child,” Peggy Bacon said. “He took me around to galleries. Then we lived in France for a couple of years, at Montreaux-sur-Mer in Picardy. It was absolutely delightful….It was a lovely life, really. Well, Father was very gregarious.”

Peggy herself was largely home-schooled as a child. Because they were always struggling to earn enough money to live on, the Bacons were unable to send Peggy to the equivalent of high school. Seeing this, two family friends in Ridgefield paid to send Peggy to a boarding school, Kent Place School in Summit, N.J. 

Perhaps it was at this time that Charles composed the poem and drew the self-portrait and sketch of Peggy that is now in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection. He wrote:

“What is it that this Daddy wants?

“Perhaps a drink o’water!

“O! No. He is so sad because

“He wants his Little Daughter.”

At the turn of the 20th Century, Charles Bacon was gaining some notoriety. He had exhibitions at the Fulton Gallery and at the Milch Gallery in New York. His works were also in the famous Armory Show in Manhattan in the early 1910s. 

However, by 1913 when he and Elizabeth had a home in South Salem and he had a studio   in Manhattan, he was becoming increasingly depressed. And on Friday, Oct. 10, he went to his studio, apparently finished a landscape he had been painting, wrote a two-sentence will, and turned on the gas jets in the room. He was found dead by a janitor the next day.

The New York Times had never covered Bacon’s work until he died. Like a yellow tabloid, it then did the 725-word story about the discovery of his body, under the headline, “Find Artist Dead A Suicide by Gas.”

The story reported police finding a note, composed to be his will. “I leave to my beloved wife everything of which I die possessed — pictures, frames, clothes, everything. Intending this night to commit suicide, I cannot have this witnessed, but it should carry conviction with it.”

While his wife and daughter were shocked at the suicide, there had been signs that the artist was troubled.

“Mr. Bacon had been despondent for some time over the lack of recognition of his work by the public and critics,” The Times reported his brother-in-law, J.W. Colt, as saying.

Three months later, the newspaper carried a brief story about the sale of his studio full of paintings at the Anderson Galleries. The entire collection brought $4,255 — more than $100,000 in today’s dollars, with the biggest sale being $435 ($10,800 in 2018).

Today, a fact that might surprise the painter, Bacon’s works sell for as much as $7,000 at at auctions. Some, however, fetch only a few hundred dollars.

Elizabeth continued to live in the 18th Century farmhouse at the corner of Spring Street and Boutonville Road in South Salem, and by the 1930s was operating an antiques business. A barn on her property was used as an office by both the local visiting nurses and as the performance venue for an active South Salem theater group. However, in the 1950s the barn was purchased and moved to Route 35 where it became the dining room — and probably the namesake — of the popular restaurant called The Hayloft.

Bacon was not only a painter, but a poet, whose work appeared in magazines and newspapers at the turn of the 20th Century. Probably his best-known poem was published in The Century magazine in 1901 and was reprinted in newspapers across the country. It was a somewhat dark work that ended, unlike his life, on a note of hope:  

UNDER THE SUN

The men who have gone before us

Have sung the songs we sing; 

The words of our clamorous chorus,

They were heard of the ancient king.

The chords of the lyre that thrill us,

They were struck in the years gone by,

And the arrows of death that kill us

Are found where our fathers lie.

The vanity sung of the Preacher

Is vanity still to-day;

The moan of the stricken creature

Has rung in the woods alway.

But the songs are worth resinging, 

With the change of no single note.

And the spoken words are ringing

As they rang in the years remote.

There is no new road to follow, Love!

Nor need there ever be,

For the old, with its hill and hollow, Love,

is enough for you and me.

Old Students Teach Young Students

We had an unusual problem: We knew the names of everyone in these four pictures but we didn’t know for sure just where they were and exactly what they were doing.

Could it be the preschool that operated at Ridgefield High School back in the 1980s? Or was it some new private preschool that used RHS students? According to several members of the Old Ridgefield group on Facebook, the answer was definitely the former.

The RHS preschool operated to the advantage of big students who wanted to learn child care, little students who wanted to begin school, and parents who were looking for an inexpensive preschool — probably free!

Shown are, at upper left, Kira Skorpen and Michelle Bellagamba, student teachers and  high school students, with a girl named Murphy and a boy, Jonathan Henry; upper right: student teacher Kira Skorpen with Rebecca Pawlik, Edward Keane, and Chris Hornyak; lower left: Terri Garofalo, Ryan Williams and probably Ryan’s mom, Joan Williams; lower right: Lisa Besse and Tracy Geary with Tom Cofone in the “housekeeping corner.”

The Ridgefield High School alumni directory says Kira Skorpen was a 1986 graduate, and that  Lisa Besse, Michelle Bellagamba, Terri Garofalo, and Tracy Geary were in the Class of 1985, so that pretty much places the pictures in the mid-1980s.

Youth On Parade

Several pictures of the Children’s Parade during Ridgefield’s 250th anniversary celebration  have been posted on Facebook’s “Old Ridgefield” group, but none quite as impressive as this one. 

The scene is Governor Street looking west from East Ridge on Friday, May 23, 1958. Led by the high school cheerleaders, the parade of the town’s public and Catholic school children had marched down Main Street and was now nearing its end as it approached  the athletic field behind the old Ridgefield High School.

The town had about 1,500 school children back then and it’s fair to say most of them marched in this parade. (Today about 4,765 are enrolled, which would make for a much longer parade!)

At the ballfield, thousands gathered for performances staged by students of various grades and schools.

An interesting aspect of this picture is the field to the right. Just a few weeks after this picture was taken, ground was broken for the new Ridgefield Boys’ Club on that property. In May 1958, the club was still in the old Loder House, on the same north side of Governor Street but west of this scene, about where the Fairfield County Bank drive-in is (the trees are hiding it from the camera).

The lawn and walk visible beyond the future club site at the right led to the Victorian house that soon became the Donnelly office building for a half century. It was torn down four years ago for the new Ridgefield Visiting Nurse Association headquarters. (For more on this, search this blog for “House of Friends.”)

Up the hill behind the trees on the same side would, in another year and a half, appear the Donnelly Shopping Center, with its First National supermarket and Woolworth’s. 

The left or south side of Governor Street looks pretty much the same today, except it’s irrigated baseball and soccer fields instead of just lawn.

One last interesting feature of this picture is the cheerleaders. If you look closely, most of them, along with some band members, appear to be looking at something happening behind the lead cheerleader in the middle. And they are smiling about it. Why?

The picture was taken by Bramac Studio, according to the back. While no photographer’s name is given, Bramac was owned by James Kavallines,  and was the contract photographer for The Norwalk Hour; that is to say, The Hour did not have staff photographers and used Bramac for photo assignments for many years.

Dick’s Dispatch #82

Tales of Christmas Past

by Richard E. Venus

Most everyone, with the possible exception of those who have to clear the roads, will look forward to a White Christmas. Perhaps it would be nice to look at some over the years that were white and some that were not.

It is interesting to note that more than half of the last 60 Christmas seasons had snow. Some were just light dustings of white while others were of blizzard proportions. There were no patterns set, as sometimes several years would elapse without a snowflake and then there would be four or five years in a row when the ground was covered with white.

So Christmas 1983 is here and by now everyone must be caught up in the spirit of the season. Some will experience the joy and the peace that this holy period brings to them. Others will feel the great urge to give something nice to people they are close to and better yet, some will make life brighter for those they may not even know. Most of us will be touched in one way or another.

In looking back, we will skip a few that are a little vague and start with 1920. It was white that year and the snow was about 20 inches deep. We helped to decorate a little old cedar tree that we thought was very beautiful. 

It is doubtful if any such trees are used in Ridgefield today. We have become accustomed to the imported pines, balsams, and firs that are so pretty and then we tend to over-decorate them so much that the tree itself is completely hidden. These modern trees have a bright green color whereas our little cedar had some dark green interspersed with some faded brown.

An important feature of the cedar tree was that it did not cost anything. All that was necessary to acquire such a tree was a trip into the great wooded areas of town where they flourished on some of the poorer soil. 

After cutting the tree with a hatchet, it was fun dragging it home over the carpet of snow. There always seemed to be snow back then. 

There was considerable excitement, associated with the decorating process. No electric bulbs were used and only a very few candles. When they were lit, someone was required to be in constant attendance as the tree was a veritable tinderbox, just waiting to be ignited. 

A long rope of golden tinsel was woven through the branches of the tree and sugar plums were hung, along with candy canes and popcorn balls that my sister Mary had made in advance. If one had never seen the overdressed, over-lighted trees of today, they would no doubt agree that this quaint little symbol of Christmas, in all its simplicity, was actually a thing of great beauty.

 Christmas day started with a trudge through the snow to church and only after that, were the presents that came during the night, opened. I got a railroad engine that year that Santa had placed under the tree. It was red and by vigorously pushing it a few times, weights and springs that were carefully concealed, were activated, causing the little engine to run from room to room. It should be noted that two of my older brothers, Jack and Charley, worked on the railroad and this must have influenced Santa.

Christmas dinner was always served at 1 p.m., and though we had a large family, nine children, we always had company as well. Mom used to put the turkey in the oven of the old coal stove, the night before, as it took a long time to cook. 

The pumpkin and mince pies were hand made, as was everything, including the cranberry sauce (not jelly) and the plum pudding, with its delectable hard sauce. 

We also had nuts of various kinds and some came from our own butternut tree. Butternuts were hard to crack and we used to take an iron from the stove that was used for pressing, turn it upside down between our knees and use a hammer to open them. It was even more of a job to remove the meat but they were so good it was well worth the effort.

After dinner was over and everything put away, the older ones sat around the pot bellied stove in the living room to talk or play games while the younger ones walked to New Pond for an afternoon of skating. It seemed that skating started much earlier then, sometimes even as early as
Thanksgiving.

That year, on Christmas night, it rained and froze a very heavy crust on the snow. The crust was strong enough to support a grown person. We had great fun the next day, making tunnels under the crust and crawling around under it.

The next year we had an even heavier snow storm and on Christmas morning there was a pair of ice skates under the tree, with my name on them. They were the kind that clamped onto your shoes and a key was used to tighten them, but they always seemed to come loose. The skates had a familiar look and I don’t think they were brand new. Perhaps Santa took them from some boy who had outgrown them. However, they worked out fine and after a few falls, we got used to them. 

I should have mentioned that in those days, fresh fruit was always a treat and we always looked forward to getting an orange.

We did not have snow for Christmas in 1923 but under the tree this time was a fine Hohner harmonica. I found later that my cousin Ed Sullivan had given it to Santa for delivery.  This was an exceptionally fine musical instrument and I soon taught myself to play it. In fact, in the next few years, I made considerable money with it. It was the same harmonica that I played on the program that opened radio station WICC in Bridgeport in 1926.

It snowed again in 1924 and this year the church was allowed to celebrate midnight Mass for the first time in 25 years. It was snowing hard as we walked to church carrying our lanterns. There were no street lights on Catoonah Street and only a very few on Main Street at the time.

It has always been my opinion that people tend to remember only the things they want to remember. Therefore, the year 1925 is pretty much of a blank to me. It was that year that I had to leave friendly little old Titicus School and advance to the big school on East Ridge. The advancement was not appreciated in the least. 

However, two things happened around Christmas that broke through the barrier. One of my newspaper customers lived in one of the apartments over Bissell’s Drug Store. Her name was Mary Cooney and we called her Miss Cooney. She was a doctor and I think she was a chiropractor. At any

rate, she took a liking to me and bought a chance in a raffle at S.D. Keeler’s store, across the street where Ridgefield Auto Parts is now. Miss Cooney put my name on the raffle ticket and when I delivered the paper to the store, they informed me that I had won the 25-pound turkey that was offered as a prize. 

The store offered to deliver the huge turkey to what was then 181 Main Street (now 612 Main). However, I was so excited that I placed the turkey in my little red wagon and raced home with it. In those days the food given to poultry did not contain the vitamins we have today and a good-sized turkey would be around 15 pounds. I was very proud to have made this contribution to our family's Christmas, but I guess that this monster caused my mother all kinds of problems because of its size. 

Also, about this time, Jimmy Begin bought Charles Wade Walker’s “Happy Hour Store” and gave me the job opening the store in the morning. This was a big thing for me and I took my new responsibilities very seriously. 

Our original intention was to write a little something about each Christmas and whether or not it was white, from 1920 to the present time. As can be plainly seen, I will not get by the first five years. So perhaps there will be another time.

My mother, my brother Joe, and my daughter Elizabeth Ann were all born during the Christmas season and we always felt that their birthdays suffered a little because of the proximity to the Lord’s birthday. 

We thought Lizzie might be a Christmas present but instead she was the first baby born in Norwalk Hospital in 1942. The William Roys had beautiful twin girls, Mimi and Margy, born the next day, on January 2. They were good friends of Elizabeth Ann and came to her party one New Year’s Day when they were still little girls. Someone asked them why they were not born on New Year’s Day and Mimi quickly answered, “We would have been, but my Daddy had to go hunting that day.”

We will take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy, healthy, and holy holiday season and a better 1984.

(NOTE: Dick Venus, who became Ridgefield’s first town historian, wrote 365 “Dick’s Dispatch” columns for the Ridgefield Press, telling about life in Ridgefield during the first half of the 20th Century. This column appeared Dec. 22,1983. We plan to publish many of them on Old Ridgefield.)

 Dick’s Dispatch #183:

When Charlie Was Santa

By Richard E. Venus

His name was Charles, and most everyone called him Uncle Charlie — that is, except at this time of the year when he became a very famous character, in a bright red suit, and a long white beard. Of course, we are referring to the one and only, Uncle Charlie Ashbee.

More than 60 years ago, Charlie and his wife, the former Ida Smith, lived at 3050 Grand Concourse, in The Bronx. They used to come to Ridgefield quite often to visit the James Smith family on North Salem Road and later at the Smiths’ farm on Barry Avenue. Big Jim Smith was Ida’s brother.

Like everyone else who came to visit in Ridgefield, the Ashbee grew to love our favorite town. Charlie made up his mind and Ida agreed, that when he retired, they would buy a lot and build a home in Ridgefield.

Charlie had been an executive for some 30 years with a large insurance company. The Ashbees were so anxious to get to Ridgefield that Charlie took an early retirement in 1928 at age 55. In those days early retirements were not common, but then Charlie was not common either. 

The Ashbees bought a good-sized lot from Arthur Carnall on Wilton Road West. The lot was where the old Ridgefield Fair and Cattle Show took place more than 100 years ago. Then they built what must have been their dream house and it shows that they must have put a lot of
thought to it. It is a very attractive house and few, if any, in our town, are like it.

After living in The Bronx, the place on Wilton Road West must have seemed like a spacious ranch to the Ashbees, when they moved into their new home in early 1929.  Both Charlie and Ida were friendly, outgoing people and they fit right into the social life of their adopted town.

Charlie wasted no time in getting involved in local affairs. About the time he arrived in town, the Promoters Club was being reorganized as the Ridgefield Lions Club. Charlie jumped right in and became one of the original members of the new club. Thirty years later, the Lions Club had a big party at the Inn at Ridgefield. They called it Uncle Charlie’s Night and it was a well deserved tribute to this fine gentleman, for his years of service to the club,  the community as a whole and especially the kids whose lives were made brighter by his annual visits.

It was at a Lions Club Christmas party that Charlie’s role as the man in the red suit began. Someone was needed to act as the man with the long white beard and as usual Charlie volunteered. Little did he, or anyone else, realize that this would develop into a tradition, in a town noted for traditions. He certainly must have been the longest running show in Ridgefield’s history. 

Charlie got to be such an important part of the Christmas season that letters addressed to the man at the North Pole were rerouted to him. He would never fail to visit the home of the little kid that wrote the letter. In many cases he was able to locate a toy that a youngster had asked for. When he did he would take it along with him and leave it with the parents, to be put under the tree. Bill Sturges was a great help in this connection as all year long he collected and repaired toys.

To say that the kids loved Charlie would be a gross understatement. Not only the kids, but grownups as well thought that he was just the greatest. Many people who are grandparents today, were visited by Charlie when they themselves were little ones. These people all have fond memories of him. 

It was quite a distance from the Ashbee home on Wilton Road West to the business area and when we saw Charlie walking to town each day, we suspected that it was a part of his health program. Such was not the case. What we did not know was that Charlie had never learned to drive a car. 

Charlie’s brother-in-law, Big Jim Smith, was a rural mail carrier and when Jim wanted to take some time off, he asked Charlie if he would substitute for him on the mail route. Charlie, agreeable as always, said that he was willing to learn to operate Jim’s old Dodge. The Smiths lived on Barry Avenue where Paul Korker lives now and they had a farm on which there was an orchard. Jim acted as Charlie’s tutor and helped him familiarize himself with the brakes, the steering apparatus, etc., and then took him out into the orchard where he charted a course among the apple trees. Charlie soon mastered the operation of the vehicle and announced that he was ready to deliver the mail. 

Jim Smith’s mail route was in the northern section of town and included the Ridgebury area. The houses were a considerable distance apart as this was some time before developments started to spring up. The people along the mail route liked Big Jim, but they considered it a rare treat whenever Charlie filled in for him. Charlie’s personality would be best described as effervescent and the people looked forward to his visits.

Jim Smith had a sideline in which he dealt in furs and collected the hides of foxes, skunks,

muskrats, raccoons, and rabbits. All of these animals were in abundance along Jim's mail route. Therefore, he established a trap line and set steel traps under each of the many bridges along the way. Jim would check the traps each day anything that he caught was put in the trunk of his car. Charlie was expected to check the traps when he did the mail route. He did stop and examine each one but after doing the route several times, it was noted that he did not bring back any game. 

The reason was quite simple. Charlie could not stand the thought of trapping any animal. If he found anything in a trap, he would release it. If there was nothing in the trap, Charlie would spring it so that nothing would be caught in it. He was a kind man.

Charlie never ran for any major elected office in town government. If he had he would have been a shoo-in, because of his popularity. He did serve several terms as registrar of voters. Charlie served for many years as a valued vestryman at St. Stephen’s Church.

In his younger days, Charlie, who was a great lover of sports, was a very good left-handed pitcher. He used to umpire the baseball games and he was exceptionally good at settling disputes. His word was always taken as the players had a lot of respect for him.

He also used to keep score at the Congregational Church Bowling Alleys for the big pin bowling league. We well remember one occasion when a violent dispute erupted between two very angry, very big and very tough bowlers. 

As they were about to tear each other apart, Charlie jumped from behind the bench on which he was keeping score. He threw his cap on the floor and jumped between the huge gladiators and announced that if there was going to be any fighting, he would do it. No doubt he saved someone from serious injury, as the sight of this great little man serving as a buffer between the big fellows, caused everyone to laugh. All agreed that his quick action had quelled a potentially dangerous situation.

Charlie developed several nice hobbies during his long life span. He had a real fine stamp collection but his greatest collection was of autographs and especially those of Presidents of the United States. He had them all, with the exception of George Washington. He also had the autographs of Civil War Generals, missing only J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson.

The Ashbees sold their home on Wilton Road West in 1946 to Elmer Q. Oliphant. In case you never heard of Ollie. he was the greatest athlete ever to graduate from West Point. He was on everyone’s All-Time All American Football Team.

Charles Francis Ashbee received many tributes and he deserved every one. He was the first to receive the Citizen of the Year Award from the Ridgefield Rotary Club. 

One year after his passing in 1962, the road Ashbee Lane, off Route 7 was named in his memory. 

Uncle Charlie continued his role of the man in the red suit, at this time of year, until his 88th birthday. At that time he was a patient at Altnacraig on High Ridge and felt bad that he could not go out to visit his kids. So the procedures were reversed and his kids all came to see him. It was a great tribute to a great man.

(NOTE: Dick Venus, who became Ridgefield’s first town historian, wrote 365 “Dick’s Dispatch” columns for the Ridgefield Press, telling about life in Ridgefield during the first half of the 20th Century. This column appeared Dec. 23, 1985.)

Burying Time

The people are town tax collector Mary Hart Foyt, left, and town clerk Barbara Serfilippi. The date is Dec. 28, 1999. The place is not a cemetery, however, but the front lawn of the Ridgefield Community Center. 

The two are helping bury a time capsule in connection with Festival 2000, the town’s rather extensive celebration of the “new millennium,” and Scott Mullin was there to photograph the event for The Ridgefield Press.

The 124-page commemorative book for Festival 2000 says the capsule was “filled with mementos from our schools, organizations and individuals” and was designed to be exhumed in 50 years.

“And what will Ridgefield be like in 2050?” the book asks. “That’s easy. It will be a charming New England town with gorgeous, tree-lined streets, a bustling core of shops and a vibrant arts community.”

If you are wondering why the capsule looks like a burial vault, it’s because it IS a burial vault. Dan Jowdy of Kane Funeral Home, who donated the vault, explains: “It was a Wilbert ‘air tight, water proof’ burial vault that normally a casket would go into prior to burial.  Most often a vault is required to maintain the integrity of the grave site...Some are not air tight/water proof.  This one is cited by the manufacturer to be.  The only air in the space is the air that was in the box when sealed.”

 Thus, if anyone in 2050 remembers the 2000 time capsule — and where, exactly, it was buried, the contents are likely to be well preserved. However, the exhumers may have a tough time getting to the contents. According to Danny, “The vault is constructed with concrete, reinforced with steel rods and bands.  There is a fiberglass seamless box with in and base and one under the lid.  With the tongue and groove design, the company fills the groove with an epoxy before setting it on the base and then the tongue and groove with the epoxy creates or binds the top piece with the bottom piece.”

Sounds like a jackhammer will be needed.